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‘Wallabies fooling themselves’ – Hansen

Date published: August 18 2016

New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen has dismissed suggestions that the pressure is squarely on his side heading into Saturday's Test with Australia in Sydney.

Earlier this week Wallabies head coach Michael Cheika said the All Blacks didn’t rate Australia with a chance of winning and wing Rob Horne said the pressure was on their opponents, but Hansen said there was no disrespect coming from across the Tasman.

"To be honest, if anyone looks at our record and we’ve been reasonably successful, [you’re not] successful if you don’t respect the opposition, so I think they’re kidding themselves if they think we’re not respecting them," he told the Australian Rugby Union website.

Hansen suggested the Wallabies were trying to create a backs against the wall mentality in the lead up to the opening Test.

"If you look at what they’re saying and that I think they’re building their own siege mentality and that’s fine, that’s what they’ve got to do and we certainly respect them," he added.

"They’re a good side, full of world class players and at home they’re hard to beat so we’re going to have to front up and play well."

Hansen admitted there would be plenty of expectation on his side going into the Test but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any on the Wallabies.

"There’s pressure on the All Blacks all the time," he explained.

"That’s where we live.

"Everyone wants to beat us and we want to keep winning .You’re kidding yourself if you think that any test match there’s not pressure on both sides.

"Again if you look at what’s happened for them recently, I think they’ve lost their last four games, that’ll create pressure, haven’t won a Bledisloe for the last 13 years, that’ll create pressure.

"There’s as much pressure on them as there is us. They’re kidding themselves if they don’t think they got any pressure."